Merry Fishes to All

Posted by Heidi Shelton-Jenck Dec 7, 2006

My tweens knew they had to buy the wacky CD with the silly title, Merry Fishes to All , when they saw song titles like: “Santa Brought Me Clothes”, “I Got a Cheese Log”, and “My Birthday Comes on Christmas”. Plus they loved the illustration of fish pulling a sleigh through the sky.

Tweens love silly, unusual humor. They understand irony and “get” sarcasm. The singing duo known as Trout Fishing in America is right up their alley. Keith Grimwood and Ezra Idlet look like a couple of fun guys who have a good time writing and playing music. Which they probably do since they have been writing music together for three decades.

It has become a morning carpool tradition to listen to the grammy nominated Merry Fishes to All during the Christmas season. The tweens in my min-van (and even the preschoolers) know all the words to “The Eleven Cats of Christmas”. In the song, cats show up under the Christmas tree and are given funny names. My carpooling tweens commiserate with the kid in the song “I Got a Cheese Log” who tells his friends (who get long lists of cool stuff for Christmas) that all he got was – you guessed it – a cheese log. For some odd reason the tweens in my carpool love the name Bob. It shows up a lot in stories they write. Maybe because of that their favorite song to sing along with is “Bob and Bob”. It’s a song about two snowflakes that look alike. What? Every tween knows snowflakes are unique. They think this song is hilarious.

Merry fishes to all of you! If you have a favorite Christmas music CD you want to tell everyone about, join the discussion.